Report: Confusion Over Criminals' Voting Rights

Reports Show Widespread Confusion About The Voting Rights Of
People With Criminal Records (10/1/2008)

Misinformation
Could Disenfranchise Hundreds Of Thousands Of Eligible
Voters

NEW YORK – A report released today by
the American Civil Liberties Union and the Brennan Center
for Justice at New York University School of Law reveals
widespread misunderstanding among state elections officials
of laws governing the right to vote of citizens with felony
convictions.

A second ACLU report, also released today,
finds that voter registration forms in states across the
country fail to clearly explain the eligibility of voters
with criminal records.

Both reports highlight widespread
problems that endanger the voting rights of hundreds of
thousands of eligible voters nationally in a presidential
election year.

"Unless citizens receive accurate
information about their voting rights from those sources
where they should be able to get it, large swaths of
eligible voters stand to be denied their rightful access to
the voting booth," said Laleh Ispahani, Senior Policy
Counsel in the ACLU's Racial Justice Program. "The
fundamental right of every eligible voter to participate in
the political decisions of their communities must be
protected."

"De Facto Disenfranchisement," co-authored
by the ACLU and the Brennan Center for Justice, compares the
actual eligibility laws in 15 states with responses to
eligibility-related questions from county election officials
in those states.

This report identifies widespread
confusion over when and how voting rights are restored,
whether people with out-of-state or federal convictions can
vote, and voter registration procedures for those who regain
their eligibility.

Some of the more alarming findings in
"De Facto Disenfranchisement" come from states that could
prove to be pivotal in this November's presidential
election. In Ohio, for example, 30 percent of elections
officials did not know if individuals with misdemeanor
convictions could vote – and they can. And more than half
of the elections officials interviewed in Colorado – a
state where 46,000 people are currently on probation – did
not know that people on probation could vote.

The ACLU's
other report, "Voting With a Criminal Record: How
Registration Forms Frustrate Democracy," shows how voter
registration forms – a primary source of information about
voter eligibility for potential voters – often provide
inaccurate, incomplete or misleading information about
whether individuals with criminal records are eligible to
vote.

"For our democracy to function properly and
effectively, everyone who has the right to vote should be
given the chance to cast a ballot," said Erika Wood, Deputy
Director of the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center. "It
is unconscionable to allow a core constitutional value to be
sacrificed because of misinformation."

5.3 million
American citizens are ineligible to vote because of criminal
convictions. As many as 4 million of these people are out of
prison – living, working, raising families in the
community – yet cannot vote by law because of past
convictions.

The reports make clear, however, that this is
only half the story. Untold hundreds of thousands of
additional voters are discouraged from registering and
voting because they receive incorrect or misleading
information – or no information at all – from elections
and criminal justice officials and voter registration
forms.

"The jumble of registration rules – and election
officials' understandable confusion about them –
contributes to a disturbing national trend towards the de
facto disenfranchisement of people with criminal
convictions," said Wood. "The laws are varied and complex,
election officials often receive no training in them and
there is little coordination with the criminal justice
system. As a result, Americans who are eligible to vote are
getting cut from the franchise at a time when voter
participation and enthusiasm is going through the
roof."

The Brennan Center and the ACLU urge regular
trainings of elections and criminal justice officials and
dissemination of clear and accurate information to the
public, beginning immediately – before October
registration deadlines. Both reports also call for clearer
laws that provide swift restoration of voting rights as soon
as people are released from prison.

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